


Starts With "Imm-"

by Eliyes



Category: Highlander - All Media Types, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Community: hlh_shortcuts, Crossover, Gen, Immortals, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5460725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliyes/pseuds/Eliyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia Martin goes for a scholarship interview with representatives of the Rebecca Horne Foundation and has some surprising information about her future opportunities explained to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starts With "Imm-"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadySilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/gifts).



> Other canon characters from both series referenced.
> 
> This work was originally posted on Livejournal as part of the Highlander Holiday ShortCuts/Highlander Secret Santa Exchange 2014, and was a gift for argentum_ls.
> 
> Original author's note: "You've written Lydia multiple times, so I figured it would be okay use her as the POV character. This was literally the first thing I thought of when they said Lydia was Immune."

 

"That's impossible."

Ms. Edwin smiled at her.

"Like werewolves?"

"Yes," Lydia replied, surprised and trying to hide it. This was not a conversational possibility she had considered when preparing for her scholarship interview with the Rebecca Horne Foundation. In fact the parts relating to her potential grant had gone quite well, but then Ms. Edwin had said there was another reason for wanting to talk to her today, and asked what year Lydia thought she was born in. Lydia guessed she was approximately thirty and given the appropriate year, figuring it was better to be accurate than flattering, at this junction.

That was when the interviewer claimed she was an immortal born in the year 29 After Common Era, and while Lydia struggled to swallow that, served a chaser of that Beacon Hills standby: werewolves.

"Exactly." Ms. Edwin tapped her tablet and turned it towards her. Lydia caught her breath; on the screen was a picture of Peter Hale, as she'd hallucinated him as a teen, as he'd looked in school pictures. Well, except he appeared to be unconscious, with a yellowing bruise at his temple. Given what she'd seen of werewolf healing, he'd probably woken less than a minute later. She looked up and met Ms. Edwin's knowing gaze.

"Several years ago, Peter convinced one of my students to exchange information, about Immortals and werewolves. He must have done quite a bit of research to find the rites to steal your Quickening, which is the energy that would have made you Immortal."

"I --!" Lydia blinked hard, once, but then it slid into place. "Of course. You seek out young Immortals and offer them this scholarship, don't you?"

Ms. Edwin nodded. "Currently, yes. Among other things."

"And if he stole my 'Quickening', I'm not Immortal now?"

"Actually, you would be what we call pre-Immortal, until the event that triggered the change. Some pre-Immortals never become Immortal. The event is a violent first death."

Lydia's hand rose to her throat, and the room seemed to tremble in her vision.

"He --"

"Probably needed a near-death experience to bring your Quickening to the surface. You are still mortal, Lydia. You will continue to age."

"Why are you telling me this?" Lydia demanded sharply.

"Because what Peter Hale did cannot be left as it is. My student, Matthew, is the one who gave him the information about our kind, to begin with. He had met werewolves before -- had been mistaken for one, a few hundred years ago, when a hunter saw him recover from a wound that would be fatal to an ordinary human. His curiosity makes him partially culpable for what happened to you, and Matthew -- he's an honorable man; in his first life, he was a knight. He wishes to make reparations."

"How could he possibly? Or is that what this scholarship is? Blood money?"

Ms. Edwin shook her head. "No. No, Lydia, you were always going to be offered this money for your educations -- though, given your intelligence, it might have waited until you were a grad student, if you had not needed it at this time. No, Matthew is going to get your Quickening back."

"...If that's what brought him back to life, will that kill him?"

"It should," Ms. Edwin said calmly. "Matthew will dismember him, just to be sure."

"And burn and salt the remains," chimed in another voice. Lydia startled, and turned to see Ms. Edwin's personal assistant, Alexa -- easy to remember since she bore a strong resemblance to Lydia's friend Allison -- coming in the side door with a tray of Starbucks drinks. "Probably bury different sections in on holy ground here and there." She handed a cup to her employer with a sweet smile despite what she'd just said, then presented the remaining two drinks to Lydia.

"You've gotten pale," Ms. Edwin observed. "I know this is all a lot to take in. We don't want your blood sugar getting low when your Quickening may return soon."

"I asked your mother what you liked when she dropped you off," Alexa revealed, "and I must say, you've got good taste. So, hot or cold? I'll drink whichever one you don't."

Lydia considered, and decided she'd prefer to risk spilling cold on her legs, rather than hot.

"Skinny vanilla spice iced latte?" she checked.

Alexa nodded, swore there was no soy, and Lydia accepted the cup from her and took a fortifying sip. Since Alexa settled in with the dirty chai latte, and her comments indicated she knew what was going on, Lydia asked if she was Immortal.

The two women exchanged smiles, apparently pleased that she'd picked that up.

"Yes. I was her first student," Alexa indicated Ms. Edwin, "back when she was only twice her apparent age."

"You're very well preserved," Lydia commented, and Alexa laughed. She looked less like Allison when she did that, not to mention barely twenty-five.

"Thank you, Miss Martin."

"What's the latest?" Ms. Edwin asked her PA.

"Closing in. Cory thinks within the hour."

"Does 'Matthew' realize what he's dealing with?" Lydia asked. "Not the werewolf thing, obviously, but -- Peter Hale is brilliant, cunning, manipulative, and insane."

"Yes," Ms. Edwin said somberly. "We know. We have been planning this take down since we got word of your coma. It would have happened sooner, but we had to find out how to reverse the rite."

"Matt has spent the last few decades hunting down serial killers for the FBI," Alexa informed her. "He has experience, and he has back-up he can rely on. Hale isn't actually Immortal, so the rules don't apply; they can gang up on him."

"What rules?"

"Oh, you hadn't gotten that far?" Alexa asked her employer.

"Not yet. You see, Lydia, 'Immortal' is a slight misnomer. We don't age, and we recover from nearly all fatal injuries, though greater damage means a longer period apparently 'dead', sometimes. But if we are beheaded, we die forever."

"Just checking, but a stake to the heart?" Lydia inquired.

"Remove the stake and the heart resumes beating," Alexa replied. "We aren't vampires, or anything like that. We eat, we sleep, we breathe. Most of us don't crave human blood."

"Only most?" Lydia raised an eyebrow.

"Mental illness can be found in every populations," Ms. Edwin answered.

"If one Immortal beheads another, they can absorb their Quickening, and any Quickenings _they've_ absorbed in turn. So Immortals fight each other sometimes. It's called The Game, and the rules include fighting one-on-one with no outside interference. For example, Matthew -- being an honorable guy -- would halt the Challenge if his opponent were shot by a third party, rather than take their head." Alexa made a slashing motion with her hand.

"Not everyone would," Ms. Edwin added, "but if you get a reputation for that sort of thing, you start getting Challenges from heavy-hitters. No one wants a cheater killing us in droves. In a strange way, The Game protects us from each other, even as it encourages us to kill each other in pursuit of some indefinable Prize."

"As you can see, not all of us are believers in The Game," Alexa said. "Personally, I'm agnostic about it. Supposedly there will be a time when we're all drawn to one place to fight to the finish, until there's only one Immortal left. I'm content to wait and see, but still defend myself from others who think their best chance at winning is to absorb as many Quickenings as they can beforehand."

"Or take out the best fighters before the main --" Ms. Edwin paused. "Lydia? You've gone very quiet."

"It's a lot to take in." Lydia's voice sounded abstract and distant to her own ears. "There's -- possible avenues of research, but -- sorry, I feel..."

\-- a strange pulling, like gravity but in the direction of Beacon Hills, she suspected. It made her head swoop; a shiver went through her. She tried to complete the thought, to say that she felt strange, but she couldn't make her voice work. Her heart sped up and her body tingled, like pins-and-needles all over. Lydia was vaguely aware of her drink spilling to the floor, of motion and voices calling her name, but her vision narrowed to a point. She gasped as _something_ happened, and blacked out.

When she came to, she knew Peter Hale was dead. She could feel it.

Three days later found her back in Beacon Hills, staring at a phone.

She'd gotten the scholarship, obviously. Alexa was moving to Beacon Hills to give her a head start on learning skills she would need as an eventual Immortal, like sword-fighting and dealing with any shadows of Peter Hale left over from his magical theft. They planned to say she was a personal trainer.

There had been a long heart-to-heart with Lydia's mother, who had known about Immortals all this time -- but not werewolves. Her dad, thankfully, was clueless. Since he'd moved to Los Angeles, Lydia was sure they could keep him that way.

Ms. Edwin and Alexa had filled her in on some pertinent facts about pre-Immortals (and had agreed to participate in her eventual lab trials about the fertility issue), and were available for further questioning. They'd loaned her some of Rebecca Horne's diaries, and some from someone named Amanda; these latter, amusingly, were in Archaic French. She'd have to keep them away from Allison...

One of the facts of Immortality was why she was staring at her phone. They were still working out timing, due to schedules and time zone differences.

Lydia made the call.

"Hey, great timing." His voice made her knees weak and her heart skip.

"Hi. Can you talk for a bit?"

"Yeah, sure. What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, I just -- I just found out I'm adopted."

There was a pause, and Lydia bit her lip. She had no idea how this would go.

"Well," Jackson said, voice tinged with empathy and some humor, "I can give you some tips on how not to react."

Lydia gave a shaky laugh. They would be alright.

She was going to be alright.


End file.
